Second Grade Writing Skills | 2nd Grade Writing Goals

Second Grade | Writing Skills

How is my Child Performing in Writing?

Your child’s teacher should be able to provide samples of student work and describe if they are meeting the goals for writing. If you are worried that your child’s writing is not developing, schedule an appointment to meet with the teacher immediately to tell them your concerns.

2nd Grade Writing Goals

While all children develop at different rates, these are goals to help you understand how writing should be progressing during the school year.

2nd graders are expected to write throughout the day at school. For each subject they will be responding to questions, taking short notes, writing in a journal, or composing a story.
Children’s sentences begin to grow, and they add descriptive words and more complex ideas. Instead of a few sentences, their stories begin to have pages of writing with pictures.
Children begin to look over or “revise” what they just wrote – they try to correct spelling, add punctuation, and make it sound better.
Children begin to explore their opinions in writing. They learn that they can disagree or feel strongly and explain their reasons.
Children will practice the three kinds of writing: opinion writing, informative writing (stories that are true with facts, recipes or explaining how to do something), and story writing (called “narrative writing”).
Students go through the writing process, meaning they think about what they want to write, write down their first ideas, look back over their work to fix mistakes and then add details and pictures. At the end, they read it to a friend, the teacher, family member or the entire class.
Students are able to do “research” by looking in books, reading websites for kids and then write answers to their questions, such as “How Do Sharks Survive in the Ocean?” They can begin to look up facts and write down what they learn in their own words.